Tool - 10,000 Days

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The prog-metal masters return with their most personal album yet.

By Chris Roper

10,000 Days is, like every past Tool release, a rather hard album to digest. For starters, being that it's the band's first release in five years, it's almost impossible to guess where the album is going to take you, and listening to it for the first time is like trying to solve a jigsaw without seeing the photo on the box. Every new listen connects a few more pieces, but it'll take a while before the whole thing comes together.

Instrumentally, the band really has never been better. Drummer Danny Carey has gotten better with every record, and his work here is no exception. While he was maybe a tad more prevalent on 2001's Lateralus, Carey continues to dive on floor toms with almost reckless (but perfectly refined) abandon, pound the bass drum in offbeat tempos and ride the hi-hat in otherworldly, complex patterns. Complimenting him in every way possible is Justin Chancellor on bass, once again ripping out hopping, rhythmic and trance-inducing bass lines that go even beyond his phenomenal work on Lateralus at times. Guitarist Adam Jones again mixes calm, almost hesitant and shy clean sections with ripping and scraping chorus and rhythm work. And vocalist Maynard James Keenan, well, let's just say that Maynard has never shown so much range.

But while the band has never played better, it's hard not to argue that they've written better. Granted, quite a few songs on the album are rather outstanding, at least in sections, but most tracks fail to live up to many of the takes on the band's previous few efforts. It's a bit unfair to judge this album directly against their previous work, but when you're talking about Tool, one of the most respected and acclaimed metal bands of the past 20 years, it's almost impossible not to.

It's an album that feels a tad disjointed, more like a photo book rather than a large, continuous mural. This is somewhat appropriate given the album's stereoscopic artwork, but we'll hit on its unique and sweet packaging at the end of the review.

That's not to say that this is a bad album by any stretch of the word. In fact, it's a great collection of Tool tracks, it's just hard to call it a great Tool album when you have to compare it to the likes of ¿nima, Lateralus and even Undertow, albums that flow with an extremely cohesive feeling of purpose. Rather, 10,000 Days feels like a really good collection of songs that Tool has put together over the past year or two, much like any other band would. But Tool is not like any other band, as evidenced even when they aren't perfect.

The album kicks off with "Vicarious," the first single off the album. It's immediately evident that this song could have fit somewhere within the Lateralus track listing, beginning with disjointed harmonizing by Jones and Chancellor. Its mesmerizing intro is quickly cut short and the band kicks into a groove that backs Keenan's vocal lashings of television and our fascination with watching tragedy "from good, safe distance...". At about 4:05 into the track, the band breaks down into a chugging, offbeat riff with Keenan's harsh lyrics creeping up quickly in reverse as he spouts them out, coming to a sarcastic change when he begins to "sing to the death rattle/La la la la la la la lie..."